Dancing, Toddlers and Natural Movement

This text, as the title may indicate, goes hand in hand with two other texts, namely 'Let the Thunder Rumble: Natural Movement with Thoreau and Chuang Tzu' and 'Mountain Presence with Nietzsche, Lin-Chi and Conan the Barbarian'. These texts explored the idea of realizing that nature and with that ourselves as part of it are subject to constant change. Resisting this change is futile, regardless how horrible it may be. If you're in a bad spot this may help you, knowing that it will most likely pass. If you're in a great spot however, you may start to get anxious about it being taken away from you (which is going to happen inevitably) and try to cling to it (which again, is futile). Living with this knowledge of impermanence though, can and will shape your character in a certain way, as it requires a quite big amount of both strength and flexibility which are mutually dependent on one another. Only possessing strength may leave you rigid, stiff and hard-nosed as someone who has lived through too many hard times and had to put up a front for protection. Because the body and the mind are one, putting up a front like that will happen both in the body and the mind, leaving one cold (emotionally) and rigid (physically).

Philosophical Roots of SBG: Matt Thornton and the Message of Aliveness

Via Wikimedia Commons. Pic by: Zero Xero

This post will be dedicated to the man behind the famous Straight Blast Gyms, Matt Thornton. Over the last couple of years especially SBG Ireland with head coach John Kavanagh has been featured in MMA media almost daily, both due to Conor McGregor's extreme starpower and the sheer skill of SBG based fighters (McGregor, Gunnar Nelson, Cathal Pendred, Paddy Holohan etc.). The man who started it all, the founder of SBG however, is Matt Thornton. His approach to MMA and Martial Arts in general is very unique and has a solid base in philosophy. Thornton, being one of the pioneers of American Mixed Martial Arts, has developed his very own philosophy to accompany his Martial Arts training, taking ideas from e.g. Jiddu Krishnamurti among certain other schools of skeptical thinking and philosophy. In this article, I want to focus in this philosophical approach - as the title indicates - which underlies his training methods. Since his philosophy is the result of years and years of research, this text will attempt to be a first glance at one of the core principles to which Thornton refers rather often. The concept of Aliveness. 

Realizing Purposelessness in Martial Arts and in Life

Purposelessness doesn't really sound like anything anybody would want to realize in their lives, does it? Particularly to western ears - I know this because I myself happen to possess a western pair of ears -  the first connotations might be that if there is no purpose in something, it's something useless and terrible which is to be avoided. Further this may lead to accusations of laziness or hedonism because if you do something that has no use you are not productive. Taking a look at the Martial Arts with this in mind, it may seem even wronger. Every move you make in a fight fulfills a purpose and going into a fight with a carefully worked out gameplan has proven to be effective for fighters at all levels, including the highest. Maybe though, just maybe there is something to be learned from accessing a state of purposelessness, at least sometimes.

Let the Thunder Rumble: Natural Movement with Thoreau and Chuang Tzu

Alan Watts once called change a synonym for life. For if something does not change anymore, does not move anymore, it is dead. Movement is life. Nothing stays in one place forever, as Heraclitus put it, "everything flows". The nature of reality seems to be dynamic rather than static. Everything moves, grows, is in decay, wins, loses, inhales and exhales. It is an up and down that is often hard to accept. Almost by design we as humans seem to want things to be permanent. We want to keep things the way they are. Change provokes insecurity and monotony in change presents us with familiarity. These, however seem to be unrealistic expectations. Reality doesn't work that way*. Taking a look at it usually confirms this: The movements of waves, tides, birth and death all point towards an impermanent reality. It may be argued that all of this is part of a huge cycle of coming and going, yet it is evident that most things do not last, at least not in the form in which they are perceived at the moment. 

Dan Hardy, Zen and Dancing with the Dionysian Goddess

Martial Arts and combat sports can teach you self-defense, grow your self-confidence and provide you with friends for life. Yet there is something more to be gained which will be today's topic. There is something that happens in the midst of battle, in the midst of chaos that can hardly be recreated in any other circumstances. It is the moment in which you have to trim your sails to the thunderous winds that try to tear you apart. In the midst of battle you lose yourself, because there is no time to think about what you're doing, as there often is not even enough time to act properly. Hence, often times you are left simply reacting.

In Zen Buddhism 'simply reacting' is an important concept. Of course this does not mean to just do anything, it is rather rooted in the belief that there is a form of intelligent mindlessness to be accessed. Often times, when Zen students would ask their masters heavy questions the answers would seemingly be completely out of context and leave the students confused. Not knowing how to deal with such a response they would often leave again in order to reconsider. Just about to be out of sight, the master would shout their name and in an instant they would answer "Yes?", to which the master would say "That's it!". Not concerned with coming up with the correct response, not rambling on about the best way to frame something, their mind was at peace and therefore instantly reacted appropriately. If you are in a race and you anticipate the next turn to be a left turn and it turns out to be a right, you have to first let go of getting ready for the right turn and then consider the left. If, however you do not expect anything and just react when the turn is actually happening, you can react faster and more adequately.*

Dostoyevsky, Zen and Attachment to Anticipation

Often times during pre-fight interviews one can hear fighters state how they are not concerned with what the opponent is doing and rather want to focus on themselves. Upon closer examination this strategy, born out of the most intense situation a mortal can find himself in, seems to also be a valuable approach to everyday life. It might not seem as too much of a problem to focus on anticipation, yet fighting as the most extreme scenario shows that when taken to the extreme, strong attachment to anticipations can backfire hard. If there is attachment to what the opponent might do and then he doesn't do it, one may be lost. Thinking about what he may do takes the place of looking at what he is doing and as BJJ world-champion Saulo Ribeiro once said: "If you think, you're late. If you're late, you muscle. If you muscle, you're tired. If you're tired, you die. You die when you tap, we die everyday."